The present invention relates to a control system for a quick heater for quickly heating the interior of the passenger compartment of a motor vehicle which is driven by an internal combustion engine. More particularly, the present invention relates to a quick heater control system for monitoring the operating conditions of various operating components of a quick heater and detecting a failure of any of the operating components to stop the, operation of the quick heater and/or issue an alarm.
There have been proposed various conventional heaters for heating the passenger compartments of motor vehicles. According to one heater design, cooling water is extracted from the internal combustion engine through a hot-water pipe and passed through a heater body comprising a heater core and a blower, air is supplied to and heated by the heater body, and the heated air is delivered into the passenger compartment to heat the interior thereof. Another prior motor vehicle heater includes a burner for burning fuel independently of the internal combustion engine, the heat generated by the burned fuel being utilized to heat the interior of the compartment.
The heater which utilizes the engine cooling water is not suitable for quickly heating the interior of the compartment since since it takes a long time to increase the temperature of the cooling water. One problem with a heater employing fuel independently of the internal combustion engine and using a burned gas itself for heating the interior of a compartment is that the hot air produced by the burner for heating the compartment interior cannot be controlled as desired. Although the burner heater is capable of quickly heating the compartment interior, of controlling the heating hot-air sufficiently, and of heating the compartment interior according to a desired heating position, it fails to sufficiently detect and indicate failures of various components of the heater.